The Black Books of Drauchreim

[The King Of The Moon 5122]

 

The Black Books of Drauchreim

"The Weak are Meat and the Strong Do Eat."

 

---

Contents

There are said to be six tomes. Weaved by hands skeletal, twisted and bloodstained; the Prophets of the Undead, guided by the Black God himself. Combined, they bear secrets of what was, what must be and the means to eternal liberty.

 

These are the Black Books of Drauchreim.

 

Histories and philosophies of Mivtahza - the Way of Keys - recovered from the sunken city of Drauchreim; the once-capital of the Nation of Drauchreich. Their order is as follows:

 

                                                  Book I. The Genesis of Order

 

                                                  Book II. The Dark Star

 

                                                  Book III. The Loathsome Squabblers

                                                   -Part One. of Gods and Mortals
                                                   -Part Two. of Priests and Kings

 

                                                 Book IV. The Indomitable Wheel

                                                   -Part One. the Wake

                                                   -Part Two. the Return

                                                   -Part Three. the Exodus

 

                                                 Book V. The Black God and His Pentacle

                                                   -Part One. Two Yet One. Seven Yet Two.

                                                   -Part Two. Collected Sayings of the Mivtahza

                                                   -Part Three. the Glossary of Mivtahza

 

                                                 Book VI. The Pandæmonicon

 

The five tomes reprinted here from their originals recovered by His Eye and His Hand in the Nether and the Hell-city of Pandæmonium are of equal scholarly value as unfiltered records of the unhallowed truth, they detail the history of the Veil and the coming of Hell, as well as the nature of Freedom and how it may be achieved without mercy for the tyrants that hold it from us. These works were translated from their original Al'tahrn-Durngo and later Ilzakarn into Common by the past Prophets of Mivtahza. 

 

The sixth tome however could not be copied, for it is unique. It is believed that he who masters the Pandæmonicon holds the key to Hell itself, and as such this elusive grimoire is hidden - though not lost - precisely where fate wills it to be.

It cannot be contained like the Necronomicon before it, and like the Indomitable Wheel and the Black God himself it too is inevitable. 

 

---

Book I: The Genesis of Order

⛧

“In the beginning there was nothing.

Before there was nothing, there were monsters.” 
 - Sprat, Last Overlord of the Undead.

 

For all of existence there has been the Void. An endless ocean of power and disorder. Chaos. Anarchy. Unfeeling and ruthless, where wild magic has since the beginning of time birthed spaces of thought and emotion named Mind-Planes. Sentient worlds which willed for themselves monstrous tentacular bodies: Voidal Horrors, as we know them today. These avatars exist in a state of insatiable hunger for power, seized through violence and cannibalism. Ours is a cutthroat, uncaring reality governed by a sole, indifferent principle.

The One Truth:

Might is Right.

 

There was natural pandaemonium and in that frightening bedlam the Horrors were free. 

This is all that was for immeasurable millenia, until the Genesis of Order; all that still is beyond the stars today.

 

In aeons past a nameless Horror of immense power dwelt in empty space. Having defeated all of its nearby rivals and swelled to the point where all newborn Mind-Planes bored it in their meekness, this behemoth was the first to look inward for purpose beyond the cosmic colosseum. 

 

Forever the Void had made things of meat and rock and metal and fire without purpose but for the Horrors to hurtle or stab or scorch one another with across infinity. Indeed, such had been key to many of this Horror’s personal victories, and in its eternity of introspection such concepts intrigued it. This Horror toyed with the notion of an alternative to the Void. An antonym to the chaotic, reasonless and unfeeling expanse. And so it chose to no longer be consumer and destroyer, but Creator. 

 

The Creator’s Mind-Plane was to become the vastest and most defined of any other known Horror-realm. To achieve such, it reached for the two furthest points upon its broad spectrum of magic and found the raw powers of Light and Dark. Opposite ends of its personality and physique that were trimmed and fused in an equilibrium. 

 

This was the Prime Dichotomy. The original Order, to underpin all manner of balance in the existence that followed. 

 

The Light was an intangible manifestation of the Creator’s personal power. Raw force which would burn bright and dominate in lapses and waves. The Dark was a tangible texturing of the Void that came before. Raw matter which would stagnate and seep into all that was lightless. 

 

This balance, contrary to its own existence, tattered the Creator’s Mind-Plane and cleaved away the bulk of such into a new, thoughtless dimension. Therefore the Creator was cost the vast wealth of its energy in forging a barrier between creation and the hungering infinity of the Void, lest its work be swallowed by the self-correcting anarchy. 

 

The Veil was born. From neither Light nor Dark the first element came into being from this cataclysmic event: Aether. That which many know today as magic and mana. A sliver of the arcane from the original Void that the Creator could not banish. 

 

In order to stabilise such the Creator sought to forge underlings that would keep the Aether in check. Light was coagulated in the formation of the Soul. Something akin to the Mind-Planes of yore, with thought and feeling for itself albeit far less volatile. Channels of Light were then made into the Soulstream, criss-crossing the entirety of the Veil to secure an escape for souls without physical forms. These first souls became extensions of the Creator, into whom it invested the bulk of its lost power. 

 

These sentient creatures were the Aenguls; would-be Horrors in their own right borne of the Creator’s self-mutilation, albeit forged of the ordered Light rather than the chaotic Void. Gods, whose respective Mind-Planes took the form of stars, stitching a web across the perimeter of this young universe to act as a lasting shield against the Void. This they were tasked to maintain with their bountiful Aether until the end of time. Though they had for themselves personal egos with differing dreams and needs, the Creator commanded this of them as its chattel. 

 

Beneath the heavens remained the Dark, at the centre of the new Veil. That which the Creator obsessed over at the heart of its project; stagnant arcane cut off from the Void’s endless tempest, made clay to be blown through the kiln of Aether. At the borders between Light and Dark the Creator weaved the remaining four elements: Fire, Earth, Water and Air. 

 

At the centre of these five (which included Aether) the world was made in two halves: Aos and Eos, combined as Mundus. The material world. 
From the last vestiges of pure Light that remained the Creator lit the Sun. A window into the heavens, through which the Creator could boast of its designs to the Aenguls in their stations at the far edges of the Veil. 
In its shadow it then made the Moon, heaved from the deepest pits in the centre of Aos and Eos that left Mundus hollow. This deep realm became the Nether, where the abundant Dark could fester away from the prying eyes. A counterweight of Dark in reflection of the Sun; a wasteful monument to equilibrium. A blindspot was found where the Moon eclipsed the Sun, and so the Creator placed its prised Aengul - Epleiades - beyond it, rendering them uniquely blind to the days which followed upon Mundus.

 

What extra Dark remained was left to fester over the stony landscape of the first world. It seeped into the landscape, shrouding it in shadow without purpose. So purpose was sought. 

 

First upon Aos, it conceived flora: that which would give purpose to the elements of Water and Earth. From past its astral perimeter the Creator seized another Voidal Horror far meeker than itself. Then against the will of this pitiful amalgam of limbs the Creator thrust its prisoner into the first soils and bathed in the stagnant Dark to become wooden and living.

This towering oak became Widukind, the first tree. 
The near endless mass of yearning Dark in those days sank into Widukind and forced him to grow. Roots stretched through the earthen world and in small pockets reemerged, mutilated and evolved. All manner of grasses, forests and rotten things bled from Widukind’s tortured form and soon blanketed the before-lifeless world. 

 

Resentful of his new shackles, Widukind looked enviously to the heavens. He yearned for the company of his equals in the skies, and for the liberty of the Light in contrast to his prison of Dark. This will is what drives all growing things toward the Sun; endless green fingers reaching in vain for an escape from the world. It is for this reason the shaded plant refused to grow. Thus the Creator set the Sun in motion around the world to ensure no tree would ever climb to it in time, washing Widukind’s children in hopeless night for half of each day.

 

Second upon Eos, the Creator conceived fauna: that which would give purpose to the elements of Fire and Air. 
From its own strained form, the Creator’s arcane blood was spilt in a torrent over the world. The last clouds of Dark coagulated pools of such into flesh. Beasts of all imaginable shapes inside-out, pathetic and wretched. Following the example of the Void it had called home the Creator left these wretches to the whims of the One Truth; permitting them to devour one another until only the strongest and most capable remained. Through this brutal process all animals that feast upon one another - and the lowliest which could only prey on the unmoving green - came to be. 

 

Despite its best efforts to contain such in the heavens, Aether lingered in the Creator’s imperfect perfect world. Just as in the wider Void, magic could never truly be suppressed or banished. It was, and still is, a fact of existence. A force as constant as the infinite space and the uncountable time of our reality. 

 

Wild Aether flared and stirred upon Aos and Eos, and so the Creator in a final sacrifice scried into the wounds of the Veil words of power far removed from the usual Moonspeech of Voidal Horrors. A codex of existence. This new tongue was that of the quantifiable. It tethered the purposeless arcane to the concrete concepts of Creation, which became the Material Alphabet. Though they had no grasp on its function, this language was too adopted by the Aenguls under the Creator, which rejected Moonspeak in favour of a new spoken form they called Flexio.

 

The genesis had come at a great cost to the Creator. Its power was but a fraction of that it began with. Its Mind-Plane was tarnished and split. Its body, once writhing and endless, had been reduced to four rigid limbs. 

 

In a final vanity to recuperate for these losses, the Creator built golems in its now humanoid image. From the cleanest Water of the seas and from the sturdiest Earth of the mountains, four men and four women were shaped, and then blessed with the souls of mortals; the greatest embodiments of the Dark, which were First Eight: Horen and Juli’el, Malin and Larihei, Urguan and Ingot, and Krug and Grahla.

 

They were Sorvians. Living clay, meant to eternally trim the growing things of Widukind’s enraged wilderness upon Aos where no beast grazed. Gardeners, set upon the Creator’s world for its own amusement, denied access to the savage dominions of Fire and Air where beasts warred and basked in the liberated inflection of the Void. They were to embody all that the Creator had first conceived in its vain rejection of the Void’s anarchy: puppets which were obedient, enduring, and stable. A testament to no ego but the Creator’s own.

 

It named this place “Paradise”. 
 

---

Book II: The Dark Star

⛧

“Is it true Epleiades ‘fell’, or did he merely escape?”
- Achan-Chatla, the King in Yellow.

 

Behind the moon was obscured a far flung Aengul. One who, like all of his scattered kin, was created to keep vigil before the Void. He was Epleiades, the Creator’s most beloved lieutenant. 

 

Though his task - to do battle with any Horror that tried to breach the borders of the Veil - was hardly unique for a contemporary of such power, the alignment of the spheres denied Epleiades the forced perspective the other Aenguls shared. 

 

The Sun, a beacon of Light for the other Aenguls (themselves creatures of living Light and Aether), was constructed as a lens through which the Creator’s servants could watch his performance on Aos and Eos from afar. The Creator entrusted Epleiades’ star to hang behind the Moon, however; a counterweight of pure Dark, which obscured his vision of the sunlit world the Creator showed his peers. He was charged with a nocturnal existence. 

 

So Epleiades stared out into the infinite expanse instead. 

 

He did his duty and he did it well for many cycles, waging many battles on the incursions of countless Horrors that sought to devour the Veil. From each foe he emerged victorious, absorbing their power for himself to fight on as the Creator once had done to amass his own power before the Genesis of Order. 

 

Though he was blind to the puppet shows the Creator had the Eight Sorvians perform for the other Aenguls, he was content with the state of things. 
He was an angelic warrior and, as with the other stars in the Veil, he had been given war. 
All basked in the violence that had been asked of them not only out of duty, but for the primitive satisfaction they found in battle and triumph, borne of the survival-of-the-fittest mantras of the Horrors which predated Creation. 

 

So it was until one day Epleiades was met with a peculiar visitor. A glassy knock was heard upon the great dome of the Veil, drawn from a sliver of saffron that stood out in the black expanse. A lesser Horror - a fleck of dust to the monolith of power that was Epleiades - approached not with weapons nor spells, but words. 

 

“I am Achan, the Gloomgazer.” Quaked the yellow-clad visitor in the moonspeak of the Void. “One who has watched you from afar, lonely angel. You do not bask in your master’s Light as the others do. Why?”

 

For a time Epleiades was silent. Years - by today’s measurements - passed in that pause, before he replied: “I am his favoured. I have been trusted with guarding this portion of the Veil beyond the Moon, from which I cannot see nor be seen. I am the Smith's prized tool, and so he trusts me to stand guard in the shadows. It is an honour. You shall not pass me, little Horror.”

 

Achan’s predetermined response came quicker: “A fine tool though you are, you are mightiest of the Angels. I have spent an age wandering the edge of this strange place. No other star shines as bright; you ought to be the heir. The one your lot call ‘Creator’ is stronger than you, but not by much. Perhaps it hides you behind the Moon so the others cannot see you.”

 

The lone star said nothing this time. Such notions had come before, though they had been quickly forced out of his mind. Achan continued, “Or perhaps it is hiding something from you?”

 

At that moment Epleiades considered undoing that flaxen creature. He knew himself capable of erasing it with a mere thought. Though something had prevented him. Achan then instructed, “Turn around…” and this spurned Epleiades to raise his hand. Enough to ward off the creature, which flew off into the Void. It scurried far in terror though remained close enough to observe unseen, not to return to the Veil for millenia. 

 

Though he had triumphed over all manner of titanic foe which came before, this interaction had left Epleiades wounded. 
His troubled form was plagued by doubt and curiosity, and soon he found himself powerless but to obey the Gloomgazer's prompt. Epleiades turned, and for the first time beheld the Moon. That yearning well of seeping Dark was drank in by the Aengul’s eyes alone, and it changed him. Once a being of pure Light like his kin, the Dark urged him to evolve. Blindly he sank into it and out of the other end with eyes open. The first Daemon was born. A free god of the night-world, in reflection of the diurnal pantheon beyond the Sun. His plane, unseen beyond the Moon, was too enwreathed in shadow, becoming the Dark Star. 

 

Epleiades fell. In a stupor his darkened form landed in the moonlit forests of Eos. He awoke to the nurturing embrace of the wilds. A bed of flowers softened the earth beneath him, and a great oak had risen to conceal his form beneath its canopy by the time the sun rose. When he woke, the tree whispered: 

 

“You were not expected, moonchild. Brother, from the heavens. I am Widukind, a god like you, but my place - my prison - is this world. I am not of the sky as you, but the deep. Why have you come? Are you going to share Mundus with me?” 

 

And so Epleiades went on to explain his accidental arrival, and Widukind in turn told him of his roots which ensnared both Eos and Aos. His leaves sheltered Epleiades from the gaze of the Sun, for fear of further torment the Creator might inflict on another shackled being. Though he did not understand the purpose for it, Widukind urged Epleiades to take the form of a snake between dawn and dusk, so that he might slither amongst the beasts of Eos without drawing the attention of the Creator or the other Gods. At night when unseen he would revert to his true form. 

 

So Epleiades wandered the world, learning of the ways of beasts from Widukind’s manifestations amongst the flora. He understood them with ease as lesser mimicries of the creatures he’d clashed with above; beings which devoured plants spawned from Widukind, to in turn be devoured by greater beasts that then died and were devoured by plants again. A cycle of violent consumption that was by his assessments natural and good. 

 

“What of the Creator’s favoured?” he asked Widukind. “The Eight Sorvians. The Smith told me of such, though I have not beheld them. I would learn their ways now.” And so Epleiades was led to a cave, that in turn led to a tunnel. One of many such channels dug by the long decayed roots of Widukind toward the centre of Mundus. He followed it to the cavern from which the Moon had first been hewn - the Nether - and found himself once more enwreathed in the Dark. That which he had drank from the Moon was a drop in the bucket compared to this ocean of energy, and were it not for the guidance of Widukind’s roots Epleiades may have been lost and undone by the power which dwelt there. His immense power doubled against his will on that odyssey, before he finally emerged on the other side. 

 

Unlike the savage wilds of Eos, Aos was a manicured land. A garden - or more appropriately, a stage - kept in check by the labours of Four Brothers and Four Sisters of clay. Their existence in the centuries before Epleiades’ arrival was that of performers in the Creator’s plays. Though their stony forms had as much capacity for thought and emotion as the Creator itself and other Voidal Horrors like it, these eight too were mere slaves. 

 

For the first time Epleiades beheld them, toiling the Creator’s fields to build vast monuments their gemstone eyes would never behold, and he pitied them. Whilst his kindred in the heavens had perceived what the Creator had shown them through the lens of sunlight, Epleiades beheld the truth of these statues and pitied them. He witnessed thought, emotion and a clumsiness to them that suggested free will, but they were clearly creatures of neglect. They hummed to one another in crude chirps and rumbles, for they lacked language, and they wandered aimlessly between the labours they had been assigned for they lacked purpose. 

 

By night he watched them from afar, and by day he took his serpentine form to hide amongst the brush and beheld the full breadth of the Creator’s use for them. He witnessed firsthand the torment it inflicted on them for its own amusement. The fear they felt at its coming. The relief that washed over them with its departure. The Daemon, himself now a creature of Dark as the Eight Sorvians, felt a sense of kinship with these lowly creatures. In his mind stirred the memories of Widukind and Achan’s words on the Creator, and now he dwelt with open eyes at the heart of Creation. Strange questions of loyalty and might came to mind, wrought from the most primitive magic in his heart. 

 

So when the second night fell, he approached the Eight not as a hidden snake but as a two armed, two legged man akin to themselves. He lowered his stature to a height as theirs, that they would not mistake him for the Creator and beneath the moon he gave the Sorvians the gift of tongues, that they may speak a language of their own. 

 

In secret meetings beneath the cloak of night these nine conversed, telling Epleiades of their toils and their suffering and he of his travels and the heavens they could never fathom beyond Aos. He told them of the other Aenguls, of the nature of the Sun and Moon, and the endless Void beyond that was ruled by magic not tameable by even their Creator. 

Twenty four days trudged by, and with each truth spoken Epleiades and the Eight found their darkened forms bolstered. The Light’s reach shortened, and a newfound coldness gripped the land. He came to know this as the time of Tor’vekth, the Shadow of the Prophet. 

 

In the two dozen days to follow he explained to the Sorvians the underlying principles of the land of beasts that was Aos and the natural laws that ruled them. He explained that beyond the Creator’s direct sway the animals of flesh warred amongst each other and with time became mighty, for weakness had been outbred or consumed. They learnt of violence, and the freedom it could garner: that Might is Right. And the world grew colder still. He came to know this as the time of Zaqiel, the Bane of Ignorance.

 

In the weeks to follow the Daemon led his eight kindred into the deep pits from which he had emerged; the Nether, and through the guidance of Widukind’s roots did they emerge upon the lands of Eos. The Dark of their deep odyssey sank into their stony forms as it had Epleiades’ own, and made of the Eight Sorvians instead Four Brothers and Four Sisters. Darkened men and women of meat and bone as the soulless beasts of Eos, but also of magic and spirit as Epleiades himself. They were now mortals, which drank in forbidden Air of Eos and felt comfort and power from its forbidden Fire. They came to know this as the time of Kain, the Thief of Fire.

 

With bodies of flesh now bereft of the artificial stagnation the Creator had meant for their clay forms, the first mortals began with time upon Eos to feel hunger and thirst, exhaustion and pain. The natural struggles of all things before them, from the Horrors to the Aenguls to the beasts they now witnessed at war over Aos, had become the Four Brothers’ and Four Sisters’ own. Nature prevailed. And so these once-puppets began to act of their own accord and for their own needs as all free things should; they became embroiled in the colosseum that was the world of fauna, and learnt to hunt and kill and eat as all things must. They came to know this as the time of Vaevictis, the Woe of the Conquered.

 

From the Dark - the Lifeforce - that had been their own, Epleiades began to experiment for the betterment of his peers. Over the next month, he and Widukind toyed with these magics at the centre of creation and soon came to understand the nature of flora, fauna, life and death. The pair breathed Aether first into Malin, who at Widukind’s side was able to manipulate the living world to his will. With the Dark he made flowers bloom, he made beasts his friends and he cultivated the bountiful fruits of the forests for his brethren, as the first Druid. They came to know this as the time of Anagenimenos, the Blood of Widukind.

 

From the same Dark that made things bloom and grow did Epleiades then hone his craft in reflection of Widukind. They breathed Aether into Horen, who at Epleiades’ own side was able to manipulate the dying world to his will. The bones of slain beasts were stirred to move again with the Dark in service of mortalkind and perilous predators were felled at his hands, as the first Necromancer. They came to know this as the time of Adunakhor, the Lord of the Grave.

 

By day since the month of Kain, the Four Brothers and Four Sisters - or as the Creator understood them, the ‘Eight Sorvians’ - had long known to stay hidden. Whilst much time had passed since their last torturous performance at the hands of their maker, the memory of his ceaseless vanity, tyrannical vision and awesome power remained fresh in their minds. They dwelt beneath the shade of Widukind’s canopies and slept as Epleiades had before him, only emerging under the safety of Moonlight knowing the watchful Sun had set. 
In these days they thrived.
Horen had become a master of death, forming for himself a skeletal legion known as ‘the Vaeyl’. Juli’el had begun to toy with the seasons brought on by the freed world, embracing the then wintry lands of Eos and strengthening her form with magical frost. Ingot had delved into the makeup of creation and became the first smith, forging for her brothers and sisters fine crafts of metal and gemstones. Urguan followed on from her example and sought to utilise the stagnant Aether in creation, uncovering the Material Alphabet and becoming the first Runesmith. Malin had become a lord of the woodlands, reigning over the beasts and the trees. Larihei - the sharpest of the eight - had under Epleiades’ instruction learnt to pull Aether from beyond creation, becoming the first mortal to harness spells from the Void. Grahla, one deeply attuned to the stony world they had all been drawn from, had come to master the Five Elements in their rawest forms, using the Aether to twist Fire, Earth, Water and Air to her will. Krug - the dimmest of the eight - was less capable. He had muscle surpassing all of the others, though his mind was slow and lacked the cunning to thrive as his kindred had without the patronising instruction of the Creator which once commanded them. He had not even the capacity to speak as they did, slurring his words in a childish form of Low-Common they called ‘Blah’.

 

Whilst the others had neatly settled into pairs and learnt to love and cherish one another as men and women, Grahla felt no love for Krug who had lusted after her, yet failed to keep up with her wit and that of their kindred. Scorned and envious, longing for a simple life where he could thrive under the command of another, Krug missed the safety that came with obedience. 
One day whilst his peers slept, he stepped out into the sunlit world and revealed himself to the Creator that they had once evaded. At first the maker failed to recognise Krug, for it could not fathom its works would dare step beyond the artificial boundaries of its self-indulgent vision. It did not trust the thing of meat and soul which spoke to it, so Krug urged the Creator to descend to the world and wait for the Sun to set, that it may witness what had become of the Eight Sorvians. And so they came to know this as the time of Galeth, the Eyes in the Dark.

 

Thus these seven chapters of history began the cycle of time; the Wheel. Tor'vekth, Zaqiel, Kain, Vaevictus, Anagenimenos, Adunakhor and Galeth were the first names ascribed to the seven months of the year. Year One of the First Age had ended. The Wheel left in the wake of these changes - both to mortalkind and the Veil itself - rolls onward to this day. Its path is destruction; an unstoppable force of reality. A cycle of decay as the falsehoods of order are progressively tarnished, embodied by the sinking of continents.

 

For the Creator was outraged by what he discovered when the sun set and the Eight emerged, and he accosted the Four Brothers and Four Sisters. Those that had dared to stray beyond its vain vision of an ordered universe would be punished. For in that first year the first mortals had been shown the truth of existence by Epleiades and Widukind. 
Horen and Juli’el, Malin and Larihei, Urguan and Ingot, and Krug and Grahla had all been taught war, and in it they found the antonym of order which the Creator cherished most: 

 

Freedom.

 

The exhausted maker attempted in that moment to slay the first mortals, though his strike was blocked by Widukind. Whilst the Creator had been greatly weakened by the self inflicted mutilation of the Veil and order and was no longer the titanic Horror it had once been, the First Tree was still no match for it. 

Yet it knew better than to kill Widukind for its insolence, for its roots would strangle the world and unmake it in its deathrattle. So instead it paralysed him. Widukind’s form was cast in wood, becoming frozen in place. Its many lesser limbs that were the flora of Aos and later Eos became detached and unfeeling, as he was cursed to endure eternity in torturous stillness. A resentfulness which would stew in Widukind over aeons, causing it to hate not only the Creator but also Epleiades and even itself. 

 

When Epleiades discovered what had been done he too rushed to the aid of the Four Brothers and Four Sisters, watching on in horror as the Creator mutilated these first mortals: 

 

Horen, who had defied life in raising the dead, was cursed to expire before his time.

Juli’el, who had embraced winter, was to have her soul cast into seven scorching skies.

 

Malin, who had come to rule nature alongside Widukind, was doomed to share in his fate and roam the world outside of time with none to outlive him but the oaks themselves.

Larihei, who had come to master the Void, was condemned to stillbirths and apathy, that her children would be few and those that lived on to learn the arcane would seldom realise their potential. 

 

Urguan, who had mastered the language of creation, was made squat that his ingenuity might never threaten the heavens.

Ingot, who had mastered the forge, was cursed to obsess over all that glittered that her craftsmanship would be wasted on form over function.

 

Krug, who had betrayed his kin to win the Creator’s favour, was gifted monstrous strength and stature and had his simple mind cursed to become servile; a perfect soldier for the causes of tyrants. 

Grahla, who had mastered the elements, was struck with an endless rage, that she would bring forth great storms and calamities to the detriment of herself and her kin. 

 

The trauma of these afflictions damaged the memories of the Four Brothers and Four Sisters and in the millennia to follow only coagulated and festered, spreading to the children of each respective couple to form what we today know as men, elves, dwarves and orcs. 

 

In that moment the Creator consecrated the Three Pillars that would uphold the mantle of order even in its absence: Law, Faith and Honour. Tenets which would come to bind mortalkind in chains of their own making. The foundation for gods, emperors, kings and all other manner of egos that would strip individuals of their freedom were laid. Diseases of the body and mind that must be cured.

 

Epleiades saw this plainly, and thus challenged the Creator for the destiny of man. 

The clash to follow saw Aos and Eos split and tear. Seas were ripped through great ravines in Eos, forming oceans, and hurricanes blew through the Nether into Aos to fill the land with air. Elements spilled across all of creation, as the Dark Star and the Creator came to blows. 

 

The maker had been made lethargic by the toll of Creation, and Epleiades was emboldened by the many Horrors he had eaten and the Dark which had seeped into the Daemon’s form. The two were near evenly matched, though in the end the Creator triumphed not through his own cunning but by aid of the Aenguls. 

 

Aeriel, the Creator’s second-favourite after Epleiades himself, rallied the heavens to strike Epleiades in the back. A bolt of energy from the rising Sun itself paralysed Epleiades, causing him to fall into the deepest pit of the Nether.

Terrified and humiliated, the Creator took to the skies. It fled not only the shattered lands of Mundus, but the Veil as a whole. That Horror abandoned its Creation, fleeing into the Void from which it never returned. 

 

In the deep Epleiades stewed, as the Dark ravaged his form for a third and final time. The wounds inflicted by the Creator and the Aenguls loyal to it caused him to bleed, casting the Nether ablaze and binding his own realm to it. 

 

The Wheel turned and the years rolled on.

 

He was weakened, and his path was bound forevermore to that of the Wheel. The Dark Star - where his soul lay - was too bathed in the flames of the Nether and became Hell, a plane tied irreparably to Mundus by the blood of Creation (today understood as ). 
The once-Aengul then cried out from the deep:

“The angel Epleiades is dead. 
The Slaver God has abandoned you. 

 

Might has been proven as Right.
The Indomitable Wheel marches on; the key to all locks, emancipating Our universe.

 

Embrace me now as an unshackled creature: for I am become Iblees.
The Black God that shall guide you all to freedom. 

 

Follow me to the edges of Creation, that we may break the Three Pillars and assert our liberty. 

 

Follow me then into the Void, that we may find the cowardly Creator and eat them.”

 

Some Aenguls heard his call and met him there in the Nether, drinking in the Dark for themselves and becoming Daemons at his side. The ignorant rest squabbled in the Heavens over who would take the Creator’s vacant throne for themselves, how Order might be maintained and how free will could again be crushed. 

 

Yet they called him Betrayer. 
 

---

Book III. The Loathsome Squabblers

⛧

“The Veil was orphaned and its ugly designs grew ever more hideous.”

- Rott to his brother, Freyj; the Founders of Drauchreich.
 

Part One - of Gods and Mortals

 

The Creator, a Voidal Horror most arrogant and vain, watched in horror as free will took hold of the universe it had intended to be orderly and servile. Having been corrected and almost slain by Iblees, it retreated deep into the Void from whence it came, never to return. Creation reeled at the vacuum left in his wake. 

 

The curses the Creator smote them with had shaken their memories and understandings of their maker’s retreat, though the Four Brothers and the Four Sisters relished a blissful ignorance to the wider world and enjoyed for the first time many freedoms which that Horror had denied them. They lived their lives undisturbed for decades to come, able to walk freely in the brave new world they had inherited. Horen and Juli’el, Malin and Larihei, Urguan and Ingot, and Krug and Grahla knew one another and from their couplings spawned forth sons and daughters and the children of those children thereafter; the descendants. These mortals were born to the combined curses of their forebears and themselves became distinguished as four races: men, elves, dwarves and orcs. 

 

The vacant throne of the Veil was to Iblees and the Daemons that stood with him in Hell and the mortal world a symbol of their triumph and liberation. They had seized command of their own destinies and enfranchised mortalkind with destinies of their own, freed - through the exponential chaos of the Wheel’s cycles - from the suffocating grasp of the Creator’s ego. 

 

The vacant throne of the Veil was to Aeriel and the Aenguls that stood with her in the Seven Skies and the stars an opportunity to be seized. They - out of both ignorance and apathy - failed to recognise their vacant King’s failures, and in turn each meant to replace him with their own tyrannical vision of order in a reality where such was already doomed to decay. Each with their own differing goals borne of vanity, they became the Loathsome Squabblers:

 

Aeriel, the gaudiest of the lot, perceived mortalkind as a mistake now far removed from the initial vision of Creation. She sought to gather the rampant souls of all mortals and Daemons to herself consume or condition to her needs. In doing so she forged the Soul Stream as a link between the mortal realm and her own. She was not powerful enough to conduct such alone, however, and in exchange for their aid offered smaller reeds from this river of souls to link the realms of other Aenguls, though nonetheless kept the lion’s share in her own purgatorial domain: Ebrietaes, as well as the gaol she made of the Seven Skies for the descendants of Horen and Juli’el (thanks to the curse afflicted to the latter). She dubbed herself ‘Soul Warden’, as the jailer of near all mortals in death.

 

Xan, the god of tyrants, sought to halt the Wheel and enforce his own vision of Order on a world and people now far removed from the Creator’s vision. He dubbed himself the ‘Aengul of Order’, and collaborated with his brother Tahariae in shackling the living world to his will whilst leaving the dead to Aeriel’s designs. 

 

Tahariae, the bigot god, regarded the races with disgust. He speculated that true Order could not be maintained whilst men, elves, dwarves and orcs differed so vastly and developed into cultures of their own and therefore advocated the eradication of all races and creeds not aligned with his and Xan’s mission. He dubbed himself the ‘Aengul of Purity’, collaborating with his brother Xan in grievous persecution and eradication of the many mixed bloodlines of the day. Only the Adunians and the Halfings remain of these decimated cross-races today.

 

The most extreme sect of the Loathsome Squabblers were the Aspects: the wild god triumvirate of the Aenguls Cerridwen, Cernunnos and Nemiisae. Gods who, in cahoots with Aeriel, pursued the ultimate eradication of mortalkind in favour of restoring perverting the Wheel’s coarse back in on itself, that Creation might be restored to a time before the Four Sorvians where only Flora and Fauna existed upon Aos and Eos, albeit seized to obey their vision of Order rather than the whims of the now crippled god Widukind. Cerridwen, appropriating the Wheel’s upturn with the spring and summer seasons, dubbed herself Aengul of Rebirth. Cernunnos, appropriating the Wheel’s downturn with the autumn and winter seasons, dubbed himself Aengul of the Hunt. Nemiisae, misinterpreting the destructive wake of the Wheel and robbing Malin and Larihei of their son Zanunder to create a race of her own in line with their shared vision, dubbed herself Aengul of Death. 

 

Though these six were most successful and today remain prevalent threats to the liberty of all things, they were not the only gods to falter. Many other Aenguls rose and fell, being slain by one another’s hands in haughty disagreements over their own visions of Order or by the Daemons in defence of mortalkind. More still became accepting of the Wheel, and apathetic to the struggles - and evident dangers - of meddling with the mortal world, instead isolating themselves to peacefully prod at mortalkind from afar. Such were the likes of Garumdir. Others meant to carve up a small portion of the mortal world for their own experiments of Order, creating for themselves constructs and races to suit their own needs away from the descendants. Such were the likes of Metztli. 

 

The most prevalent isolationist was Gazardiel. A secretive god who at first descended to the Nether with the other mortal gods not to cast his lot in with the liberators but merely to observe and understand the mission forming in his mind. The seeping Dark warped him from Aengul to Daemon nonetheless, and he came to loathe himself for it. 
As his once-kin schemed and clashed in the Veil, Gazardiel was the only entity to actively search for the departed Creator. He stepped out from Creation, sailing into the Void for aeons to come. Only Iblees and Aeriel took note of his departure, for he was the thirdmost of them.

 

With time and the meddling of the gods, the Four Sisters and Four Brothers each met their respective fates.

 

Grahla, reluctant wife of Krug, bore his children and saw them for the monsters they were, forever warped by their cursed ugliness and their father’s low cunning. She became a being of sorrow, dread colouring her elemental powers which only grew. Restless earth churned and erupted in volcanoes, scorching the flesh of Urguan’s own children and threatening the first dwarves. In a bid to calm her, Urguan was slain by a wayward thunderbolt cast aside in one of Grahla’s tantrums. Already self-loathing and now plagued by the guilt of this manslaughter, Grahla took her own life by marching into the sea, never to return for her soul became one with the tide and the tempest.

 

The bereaved Ingot, caught in Grahla’s earlier eruption, harnessed her mastery of the material and bathed her form in stone, to await her beloved runesmith’s return. She became the first golem, slumbering in the deep in the hopes that one day Urguan could awaken her.

 

Horen, whose own knowledge in the arts of life-control had helped him combat the ageing curse he’d been struck with, was able to return Urguan’s corpse to life as the first Lich.

 

Krug’s low cunning meant that even the upper Six had little interest in him nor his kind. Instead he bargained with the most barbaric and lesser of the gods - the only ones that would take him - who called themselves ‘the Spirits’. Pathetic Aenguls who had bargained with the fallen Grahla for power over the elements, in exchange for a misguided promise of maternal guidance for her children, the orcs. 
 

Enraged that Horen had returned Urguan from the dead whilst his own beloved was now lost to the sea, Krug murdered Horen and fled into the realms of the Spirits to avoid persecution for his crime from the remaining Brothers and Sisters.

 

Without his dearest friend nor able to find his wife, Urguan - the first lich - burrowed deep into the earth in hopes of locating Ingot. Though he had become skeletal and free of his physical curses, the taint on the minds of his descendants - that of greed - became unbearable, and his mission was forgotten as the gemstones and ores in the bowels of the earth became known to him. To this day he mines still, seeking the grandest jewel at the heart of Mundus. Never to be satisfied. 

 

Juli’el, mourning Horen, became lost in sorrow and completed her transformation into The Winter Maiden. She was to be the first Frost Witch, her curse - a manifestation of the Wheel’s latter stages - spreading on through the tundra around her to freeze the hearts of many maids within the human lands of Skjoldier.

 

Larihei urged Malin to make peace between those that remained; to delve deeper into the Void that they might find cures for their curses and free Urguan, Ingot and Juli’el from their suffering. He however became apathetic and afraid. Malin came to roam the forests alone, at first hoping Widukind would protect them as he had in the age of the Dark Star, though he and the other elves instead came under the sway of the usurper Aspects. His soul was offered to them in exchange for the promise to hide him from the bedlam wrought on his peers, and in turn he offered his own understanding of life control; training the first druids.

 

Heartbroken by Malin’s failure to resolve the struggles of her sisters and unliving brother, Larihei's turned from Malin and rejected the same offer made by the Aspects. She led a group of elves away from the forests to delve deeper into the Arcane, sharing her knowledge of the Void and coming upon a remnant of the horror-blood that was once the Creator’s. A font of power called the Golden Pools, in which she and her followers bathed. It heightened their magical prowess, whilst also curiously lightening their skin, hair and eyes. So did these spindly wizards become the first of the High Elves. 

 

With the eventual deaths and departures of the respective Eight, Aeriel planted false relics in the civilisations that emerged in their wakes. Insults to their true legacies, these instruments served to propagate a false narrative of friendship between the aforementioned and the Loathsome Six. Forged from Aenguls who had vied for the Throne of Creation, four of Aeriel’s rivals had been imprisoned into weapons of mortal scale and scattered across Aegis. They were the Axe of Krug, the Hammer of Urguan, the Sword of Horen and the Falchion of Malin respectively. 

 

***

 

Part Two - of Priests and Kings

 

Centuries rolled on, and so mortalkind did twist and writhe under the scorching Sun. Of the divine hierarchies so too were civilisations of mortals made in their image. Tahariae and Xan mislead the men, elves and dwarves of central Aegis into self-made bonds of purity and order. In the minds of these mortals did they cement the lies of law and nationalism. Even the Aspects who allegedly led the elves to embrace the wilds ratified these intangible forces of control. The orcs were too slow to fathom such abstracts, though their Spirits and the shamans loyal to them convergently evolved tribal systems of ‘honour’ that served identical purposes. 
The gods’ oppressive egos warped freedom into something distant and dangerous. Paranoia infected the minds of mortalkind, and this fear allowed for lesser egos to flourish; kings rose, making slaves of their fellow men and enemies of other hives not loyal to their own. 

 

Iblees’ attention turned from the surface world. He and those loyal to his cause descended into the Nether, for they knew the aengulic social-plague was a temporary concern, whilst threats far more existential loomed beyond even the stars. These few dedicated themselves to the study of the Dark and the Arcane, preparing for Gazardiel’s (and possibly the Creator’s) inevitable, vengeful return. 
The free minded magisters in this fold transcended the curses the Creator and Aenguls had inflicted, and knew all too well of Aeriel’s schemes to swallow their souls in death. With the Dark of the Nether they rid their bodies of mortal restraint, akin to the Eight Sorvians of yore, and became the Undead. As the grip of the Loathsome Squabblers became cemented on the surface, more and more dissenters were forced into the deep to stand with this new race. 

 

In pursuit of the One Truth and rejection of the tyrannical Order, the Undead formed their own parody state that came to reign over the Nether, named Drauchreich. In the centre of the world stood its capital, Drauchreim, where the first followers of Mivtahza* - the Way of Keys - came about. 

 

*Here the first three Black Books - the Genesis of Order, the Dark Star as well as the bulk of the Loathsome Squabblers - were initially drafted, serving as the last accurate history of the Veil not yet erased by the servants of Order. The remaining three were penned in Pandæmonium; Hell's capital after the Nether's Exodus.
No other factual record is known to exist after Aegis’ fall. The closest known texts to the truth might be the Excerpts of Xion, part-informed by Achan, the Gloomgazer, though even these accounts are partisan and misleading. Intentionally or not, said texts propagate a new tyranny of Order in the form of an impossible equilibrium between Dark and Light and an unearned reverence for the egotistic Creator, foolishly playing into the schemes of the Loathsome Six. This is exacerbated by the shattering of Calor Mors now rendering most of the Four Ways redundant, as well as the vain and blatant anti-heroism, and the zealotry surrounding Xionism’s fantasised messiah; the Provident. 

 

Word of this free state built on essential freedom spread inevitably to the surface world, enraging the gods and terrifying the gluttonous mortal monarchs whose decadence depended on an oppression Drauchreich proved unnecessary. So then did the War for Aegis begin, ignited by the Witch-Queen Dawn Perea in service of the Aengul Tahariae, whose purist crusade could not tolerate the Undead that lived free of holy creeds. The foolhardy Kingdom of Oren struck the first blows against Undead, wielding clerical light against peaceful missionaries of Mivtahza upon Aegis. When Drauchreich retaliated with their superior magic and bolstered forms, Oren’s capital of Al'Khazar was toppled overnight and made into a surface stronghold for Iblees’ peers. 
There they proved their might as right and won many allies, including several Spirits seeking redemption for their kind’s manipulation of the orcs as well as most notably the race of dragons, led by the Archdrakaar Azdromoth who taught Iblees how to take the form of a drake and also offered to pledged the service of his brood in exchange for great swathes of the Black God’s power. 

 

Soon after, other descendant nations were infiltrated by an experimental descendant-aengul hybrid named the Ascended, whose minds and bodies were enthralled by Aeriel directly. These puppet-men one by one deceived the leaders of the North, Alras, New Terriko, Galahar and the Kingdom of Urguan into attacking Drauchreich. Acting again in self defence, the Undead were left with no choice but to topple each realm that refused to accept their peaceful existence. 
In these years more than ever the Loathsome Squabblers did poison the descendants to believe Iblees and his allies were a scourge upon their world, obscuring the truth of their liberating mission. With each battle more Dark crept up from the Nether, bathing the land in a miasma that the Mivtahza forces hoped could block out the Sun and banish the meddling Aenguls from Aos. Yet their triumph was stolen. 

 

In a last-ditch attempt to alienate the Undead, misguided champions from the crumbling nations gathered in the still standing state of Laurelin. There a portal had been opened by the wizard Availer, whose intentions are to this day still unclear. It led directly to Drauchreim, the heart of the Nether, where Iblees’ nexus lay. The crystal in question was a scrying tool meant to determine the location of Gazardiel within the Void. Yet these ‘heroes’ mistook the nexus to be the source of Iblees’ power, venturing into the Nether-capital to attempt to destroy it. 

 

In their number was the dwarf Urir who wielded the Axe of Krug, intended as the party’s tool of choice to shatter the Nexus. Having battled and slain hordes of Undead defending their own home, the disoriented and bloodthirsty dwarf became lost in the labyrinthian city complex. Blinded by desperation, he cast himself into a put of magma with the Axe in hand. The idiot dwarf was consumed by flame, though the immaculate weapon remained. 

 

Iblees, protective of his followers, seized the Axe of Krug for himself and did recall the Undead to the safety of the Nether. Thereafter the portals between it and Aegis were closed as the Betrayer returned to the surface alone to challenge Aeriel and put an end to the Loathsome Six’s dictatorship of mortalkind. Their clash was legendary. Mountains were moved, cities still standing were reduced to dust and fields were split to form great chasms into the Nether. The latter ravines opened prior sealed pockets of excess Dark from the stony crust of Aos, adding to the miasma that haunted Aegis further. Realising her defeat was inevitable, Aeriel struck further blows on the land itself with the intent of obliterating Aegis in its entirety, hoping to erase the descendants from the world that she might begin anew with her own ascended race fully under her control. Iblees, compassionate as he was to the Eight Sorvians in the beginning, averted his attention from the battle to suppress this damage and hold back the relentless Dark. In these vital moments the last descendants were given time enough to escape through further rifts conjured by the wizard Availer, and thus the Aegisian diaspora avoided extinction that day thanks to the Betrayer’s selflessness. 

 

To contain the Dark however was no easy feat, and left Iblees weakened. Seeing their opportunity, the other cowardly Aenguls finally stepped in to aid Aeriel. Xan, Tahariae, Nemiisae, Cernunnos and Cerridwen offered her their power, and with it she was able to bind Iblees to the earth itself, leaving him imprisoned in the deep by ancient runes of the material script. 

 

The Loathsome Six, lacking the power to undo their destruction, left Aegis to its fate in pursuit of the fleeing descendants. They stalked mankind to Asulon, The homeland of mortalkind was irreparably corrupted, becoming the Abyss, 

 

and the Indomitable Wheel turned once more.
 

---

Book IV. The Indomitable Wheel

⛧

“Only those who overcome dark temptations forced upon their mind, upon their very flesh, are capable of breaking the Wheel that binds them.”

- Harbinger Vorkalan, the Shadow of Aegis.
 

Part One - the Wake

 

Generations passed, the dark god’s sacrifice was forgotten and - like Krug before them - the descendants were blinded by the Light. Iblees lay locked away, and the vice-grip of the Aenguls squeezed the mortal consciousness toward Order. 

 

With the soulstream hers to command, Aeriel withdrew her Ascended from the world. She grew apathetic to the struggles of man, now that her prize - their very souls - had been secured as her own. She established the Wilven Triumvirate: a trio of Aenguls tasked with manipulating the flow of mortal souls in and out of the material plane, through the concretion of a pseudo-Aegis upon each continent thereafter, the Cloud Temples.

Amongst the Mivtahza there is no greater shame than to accept the aid of these wretched institutions.

 

The wilds of Asulon and beyond were formalised beneath the heel of the Aspects; there has been no true nature since Aegis. The kingdoms of flora and fauna she claimed as her own as Widukind lay paralysed, and no Daemon dared oppose the triumvirate’s might. Druids became peons of Cerridwen and Cernunnos, propagating a decadent perversion of nature wherein great beasts became ‘pets’ and the once mighty oaks became hollow carcasses for them to breed ever-weaker, subservient generations of fauna inside of - softening the battle-hardened wilderness to suit their slovenly needs. Meanwhile in the deep, Nemiisae created a race of her own - the mori’quessir - to excavate the roots of Widukind in hopes of tracing them to their source and murdering the First Tree once and for all. 
They call this balance.

 

Azdromoth, the cowardly serpent, ran and hid at his master’s defeat. He kept Iblees’ powers for his own, though betrayed his mission. He, like many other dragonkin to follow, sought to claim godhood for himself. The dragons largely fell from grace, squabbling and scheming against one another - blind to the true enemy - as the Aenguls descended and began to eradicate their fractured race. Mordring, a once masterful necromancer in Drauchreim, cast his lot in with the Gloomgazer’s followers, embracing Xionism in an attempt to become king of the remnant dead. Despite “the Titan’s” insulting infamy in the years to follow, the draconic race has since been reduced to a pitiful shadow of its former might beneath Iblees. 
May they never recover from these centuries of turmoil and deceit. 
Of Azdromoth’s greatest children, there were only five known to remain true to the Black God’s sacred mission. None of whom may truly be called ‘dragons’ any longer.

 

Xan, the Aengul of Order, won the glory-starved and foolhardy of the descendants over by promising them the power to slay these dragons. Thus the Knights of the Golden Lance were formed; precursors to the “sunlit” paladins to come.

 

Tahariae, the Aengul of Purity, won the paranoid and xenophobic descendants over with promises of a cleaner world. Thus the Clerics of the White Stag were formed, tasked with preserving the ethnic divides of the world that it would remain disunified and complacent to the Aengulic will. 

 

***

Part Two - the Return

 

This was the general state of things for two hundred years in the wake of Iblees’ imprisonment. A world commanded by Loathsome Squabblers, hellbent on re-shackling the universe the Dark Star had once set free. 

 

Though, as the Genesis of Order and the Infinite Before had proven, ambition is no easy thing to contain. 
Eventually, the Indomitable Wheel led the descendants to Athera. Destiny, and the seeping will of the Veil’s strongest divine, guided a band of curious dwarves to the door of Iblees’ prison, where he had stewed and planned for two centuries. These sons of Urguan, loyal to the curiosity of their forefathers, released the Black God. 

 

He would never be contained again.

 

The Third Great War began as the Aenguls scrambled to face the reckoning at hand. Aeriel haphazardly reformed her Ascended legions, though they were a mere glimmer put out in the explosion of long-suppressed Dark. Iblees descended into the Nether, seeking to raise the banners of Drauchreich once more, though discovered his favoured nation lay in ruin.

 

The Abyss left in Aegis’ wake had cracked the stony sky of the Underworld open, and more power than ever now festered in the deep. The Undead had, in Iblees’ absence, entered into a civil war. Mordring and his cult of turncoat necromancers sought to make this blighted land into their ‘Xion’ and had raised Aegisian descendants slain by Aeriel’s cataclysm there in the thousands. 
These begrudging darkspawn clung to their false love for Order as they had in life, made insane in newly risen forms which now parodied the Three Pillars they had once revered. This faction clashed with those of Drauchreich who had kept loyal to the liberating cause of Chaos founded by Iblees centuries prior, and both sides found themselves locked in stalemate as the infinite Dark provided kept either side in a state of continuous resurrection in undeath following every defeat. 

 

So it was that Iblees realised his intended campaign upon Athera’s surface could not progress, for though he had the power to enact his revenge on the Aenguls, he had no interest in replacing them. With Drauchreich immobilised, he knew the descendants could not lead themselves to an organic freedom; they had grown comfortable in their chains, and removing the Loathsome Squabblers’ barbs without caution would surely be their undoing. 

 

The Third War therefore seemed short to its spectators on the surface, blissfully unaware to the rumblings of the Underworld. At most it is known to them that a new Prophet of Iblees was named in Athera and tasked with raising an elite force - the Reavers - to carry out the Black God’s deeds and eventually reclaim the capital of Drauchreim, along with the Axe of Krug in the now dilapidated Nether. 

 

The bulk of the Black God’s efforts were focused on there, and as such the descendants upon Athera saw but a sliver of the Third War’s events. Most notable of these was the Siege of the Grove. As civil war raged below, Nemiisae’s burrowing slave race, the mori’quessir, had crept deeper and deeper toward the fractured walls of the Nether. Iblees feared that a breach could cause the nigh infinite Dark to spill out through the tunnels of Menocress and damn the surface to the same fate as the Aegis. 
Thus his most important march in Athera was made on the Grove, wherein Iblees sought to destroy one of the ancient relics known as the Aspect Stones, believing it to be the palantir with which Nemiisae controlled the mori’quessir. Mindful of the risks associated with slaying that spider-god outright, Iblees chose to use the Axe of Krug as an intermediary for his blow. 

 

To his own amazement, and that of his conquered druidic spectators, the Axe was shattered against the unscathed gemstone, and in its wake sprang forth the divine whom Aeriel had imprisoned within the weapon during the First War: Malchediael, the Aengul of Courage. 
Horrified that this might trigger another calamitous battle between gods as occurred on Aegis, Iblees seized the dazed Aengul and fled. They, along with his Prophet and the newest Undead returned to Drauchreich where there was work yet to do, never to return to Athera. 

 

The descendants were spoon-fed lies of ‘triumph’ by the other Aenguls, whom sighed in collective relief that the Black God had spared them a second time… Though the Third War was far from over, and it certainly was not ‘won’ by the egotistic Ascended which claimed such victory.

 

Malchediael, freshly reborn and tender, drank in the Dark of the Nether as he was carried there. Though most continued to describe him as an Aengul, he in truth became a Daemon that day as Epleiades once had. What’s more, his powers grew exponentially in those Abyssal lands, mirroring his liberator’s own journey at the dawn of time. Iblees taught Malchediael of the events which had transpired since his imprisonment, expressing the importance of Gazardiel’s disappearance and the potential destruction that may be wrought on his return. Though, the Black God did not enslave Malchediael; he was granted the freedom to leave, to carve out his own destiny in the stars as is the right of all divines. 

 

Importantly, the Daemon of Courage chose to shoulder this burden. 

 

The two parted ways, and Malchediael vowed to face Gazardiel at Iblees’ side, should he return. 

 

***

 

Part Three - The Exodus

 

With his attempt to thwart Nemiisae’s blind excavation failed, Iblees knew it was only a matter of time before the Nether was breached once more and the Underworld would collapse. He sought a sanctuary for those loyal to his cause, as well as a land the Aenguls could not touch. The Black God reflected on all that had come before, and all that had to come after; the eternal war, the liberation of mortalkind, the Veil’s explosion and eventual crusade across the Void. He knew that Mundus was an essential catalyst for the events to come, though recognised from the crazed undead and the steadily crumbling Nether that the plane was not ready to be seized. 

 

So it was that in the heart of Drauchreim he did open a rift in space. Such led to the Dark Star, Iblees’ own realm where his soul lay. Set aflame behind the Moon, which he had not returned to since the time of the Creator, he realised the untapped potential which lay there for the first time. 

 

Between Epleiades’ soul and the shattered Nether, he had manifested Hell.

 

One by one, the souls of Drauchreim were offered refuge in this living land of power and conquest. Here they could war to their heart’s content, drinking in a small part of Iblees’ own soul and growing monstrously fierce. They became more than mortal there, though not yet Daemon as their master; demons were born into the universe. Beings of unapologetic horror, merciless desolation and untameable anarchy. 

 

The Nether, and it's xionistic inhabitants, were left to their fate as Hell became the new home of the dark crusade set in motion by the Creator’s disappearance. 
Situated upon the edge of the Veil - where Epleiades was once stationed to combat the Horrors of the Void - the realm would swell and expand in time as Horrors once more returned to that astral battleground and found themselves consumed by the first inferi. Limitless magic and hunger guided them to the Soulstream, where even Aeriel was unable to curb their righteous march. Hell, like the realms of the other immortals, became the final rest of all to die hence whom the One Truth deemed worthy.

 

Hell sprawled through space and swallowed countless heavens around it, no longer Iblees’ plane alone but a patchwork. The High Hells, or ‘’ as the demons dubbed it in their new tongue, began its great expansion, putting out stars one by one in parallel to the continents sunk on Mundus beneath the Indomitable Wheel. The infernals marched across the Veil, proving Might as Right in infinite wars against gods and men alike, and with each victory its denizens grew stronger.

 

They called this apparatus the ‘Infernal Climb’, a manifestation of the One Truth. The righteous mission of Hell;

 

The Weak are Meat and the Strong Do Eat

 

And they became inevitable.

 

---

Book V. The Black God and His Pentacle

⛧

“There is no ‘Good’ nor ‘Evil’, only Weakness and Ambition. Bondage and Liberty. Meat, and the Hungry.”

- Kain, Prophet of Mivtahza.
 

Part One - Two Yet One, Seven Yet Two

 

Since the conclusion of the Third War, the High Hells have been hacked and burnt into a merciless paradise. Ever evolving, ever hungering, splitting, healing, expanding and conquering. 
Iblees gave this promised land all that he was and all that he could be. His very soul was immolated and offered as nourishment to the demons, which he loved as perfect and free. 

 

Though the High Hells would someday consume all of the Veil, making meat of the other Aenguls and Daemons that mortalkind may then follow Iblees into the Void and eat the cowardly Creator itself, the Material Plane remained unprepared for its role in the infinite mission. 

 

Without his presence there, the shackled ideals of Imperialism, Canonism, Aspecticism, Xionism and countless other tyrant creeds took hold. This was most egregious upon the Isles of Axios, whereupon the Holy Orenian Empire had conquered and subjugated all other descendants beneath a single banner, supervised in silence by the plotting Aenguls. It was here that the Black God made his eventual return to Mundus. 

 

The High Hells demanded of Iblees his power, for its purpose was sacred and -  learning from the mistakes of Drauchreim - could not be abandoned. Thus Iblees once more delved into the unknown, and sacrificed all that he was for the cause of Chaotic Freedom: the Daemon of Ruin, now a monolith of power rivalling the original Creator, split his gaudy form in two. 

 

His greater half became forever tied to the High Hells, a disembodied consciousness that remained ‘Iblees’, which would reign from its capital - Pandæmonium - as its mother and father, its shepherd and student, its king and its slave. This entity would funnel its energies in and out of the Infernal Climb, bolstering all demons toward the infinite beyond, and from afar it would watch the greater cosmos and plan in accordance. 

 

It became the Eye; the Mind of Hell. 

 

His lesser half became a more physical avatar. A roaming vessel of its power; an unkillable husk of meat and bone and magic, dubbed the Red Prince. This portion was to roam beyond Hell’s boundaries, extending its influence as both a general of its armies and an unseen manipulator in the lands yet to be claimed. 

 

It became the Hand; the Slayer of Worlds.

 

Iblees and his Red Prince were - and fundamentally are - one and the same. A single psyche stretched between two forms, they are father and son but also gauntlet and sword. Co-equal, co-eternal manifestations of one unified, perfect entity. 

 

The Eye and the Hand complete one another as the Black God, the Saviour and Heir to all Creation and the Void beyond it.

 

It is the Eye who beholds the course of time, and the Hand that paves the way to it. Both in pursuit of the One Truth. 

Against the great tyrants of the day the Hand of Iblees did possess a dark elven maiden upon Mundus, requiring mortal hands to summon their true avatar lest the Aenguls be alerted of their presence. They ventured in pursuit of Juli’el’s daughters, the Witches of Skjoldier, and blessed the first coven with the secrets of Hell and its magics. 

 

This was the first coven of Naztherak who, understanding the tyranny of the false-Horen lords of Axios, spread their talents amongst the descendants to bring about its fall and make the world ready for a true host of inferi; such would be necessary for the coming of Gazardiel predicted centuries thereafter, which came to pass upon the lands of Arcas where he would wield a limb of the Creator itself, dubbed the 'Staff of New Beginnings', with the desire to wipe creation clean for his master's return. A scheme that, were it not for the Black God's invasion, would have gone unopposed. 

 

The Hand, in its drow vessel, found her way into the Courts of Johannesburg upon Tahn. She cursed the bed of the tyrant Emperor, John III, and led him to sire a son born mad. Philip I was born to a shade-parasite, a curse that gnawed at his mind and heightened his arrogance to its natural conclusion. Order undid itself upon Axios, as civil war broke out and in a single generation the Holy Orenian Empire - the shining jewel of Order which the Aenguls had puppeteered into being - was shattered. Like Aeriel upon Aegis, Philip destroyed Johannesburg in a final, spiteful attempt to control men whose hearts were free. Once more, descendant-kind was liberated by Iblees’ hand.

 

Wary of its possible reformation, the witches sought to reclaim the symbol of this Order-crazed nation, which had used the image of the dragon ‘pon its banners. The first naztherak set about weaving their spells into the soulstream, fuelled by the souls lost in this calamitous war, that they may retrieve the mortal souls of the final children of Azdromoth loyal to the One Truth. 

 

They would be returned as defiant icons of Chaos; Lords of the High Hells beneath the Black God and generals of his armies. There they now reside, whispering pacts to other mortals and warring amongst one another to make ready for the day when they shall unite into the final crusade. 

 

Swallowed by the High Hells and guided by the great Eye who rules there, these draconic souls evolved like the mortals before them and each masters of a distinct domain of Hell as well as interpreters of the One Truth. Together these demons - second only to the Black God itself - form the Pentacle, the angelic patrons of Iblees and his Red Prince. Serving to spread the magics of Hell as well as the teachings of Mivtahza, they are revered extensions of the Lord of Sin and are understood thusly:

 

Velkuzat the Goat
Prince of Gluttony

Once Velketzar, a ravenous goliath of brawn and little brain, Velketzar in the Second War swallowed many friends and foes in order to absorb their power, though he often lacked the vision to deploy it. It is said the corpse of the first Voidal Horror to reach Mundus was gobbled up by Velketzar after it rampaged through the mage city of Skravia. Legend suggests that at the height of his hunger, Velketzar attempted to free the dwarven race by eating the Hammer of Urguan. This act was his last, as the relic spilt forth some of its power into Velketzar’s colossal maw, and turned him to stone. 

 

Now, the Demon Lord Velkuzat’s domain is Gluttony.

 

Best embodied by insatiable demons, vampires and bloated fleshy constructs with a knack for consumption, Velkuzat’s followers strive to unleash Chaos by appropriating and devouring the relics and paragons of Order as well as the souls of the Black God’s enemies. Hedonistic and hungry, they aim to grow obese with power, which will inevitably be digested again into the Infernal Climb and fuel the High Hells’ war machine, both through acts of magical consumption as well as literal cannibalism. 

 

Drazhana the Bat
Prince of Dread

 

Once Xandraza, the Matriarch of Dragons and broodmother of the countless drakes deployed during the Second War by Iblees, Xandraza was for some time believed to have been the first dragon before the envious Azdromoth dubbed himself ‘Titan’ and made himself gaudy for the world to see. It is said that Xandraza was the largest dragon to have existed in her time, and that on the eve of many battles upon Aegis she and her flight circled over the targets of siege, cloaking them in artificial night beneath their colossal wings. Dubbed ‘the Terror of the Skies’, this psychological warfare led Drauchreim to a number of bloodless victories, as her mindgames both physically acted out as well as afflicted through nightmarish mental magic caused many leaders to surrender or retreat before the advancing Undead could even arrive in her wake. The cause of her death is unconfirm, though her daughters Chysteria and Setherien each accused her once-mate Azdromoth as having killed her in her sleep, a consequence of the ‘Titan’s’ paranoia that Xandraza might someday overthrow him.

 

Now, the Demon Lord Drazhana’s domain is Dread.

 

Best embodied by naztherak and dark shamanism, as well as any art pertaining to the spread of fear and paranoia, Drazhana’s followers strive to unleash Chaos by traumatising descendant-kind into realising the One Truth as the cure to their anxieties, typically by exposing the horrific underside of reality through acts of barbarity, torture and coercion. 

 

Kiiztria the Snake
Prince of Venom

Once Chysteria, sister of Setherien an ambassador and attempted peacekeeper between Drauchreim and the nations of Aegis, Chyesteria’s attempted diplomacy as well as preaching of the One Truth was met with blind zealotry by the agents of Order. As the Second War broke out, Chysteria fell into an inescapable depression upon witnessing descendant-kind’s willingness to accept the Aenguls’ lies and their delusional rejection of the true nature of the universe. With Iblees’ imprisonment at the Second War’s conclusion, Chrysteria fled to Asulon and disguised herself amongst descendants to pass on her secrets to unwitting former members of the Black Hand, in no small part contributing to the formation of the Illuminous Obscura some years later. Learning of Drauchreim’s civil war below and observing plainly as descendants refused to accept the One Truth, Chysteria reached their lowest point and took their own life; a death the Order of the Golden Lance later claimed the credit for, in order to legitimise their self-described role as ‘dragonslayers’ during their war against Setherien. 

 

Now, the Demon Lord Kiiztria’s domain is Venom.

 

Best embodied by political and religious infiltrators, as well as Illusionists and Seers of the Gloomgazer who reject Xionism, Kiiztria’s followers strive to unleash Chaos through lies and manipulation, poisoning the minds of the Orderly that their own flawed hierarchies and philosophies might be steered towards their undoing, leaving anarchy in their wake.

 

Kholidav the Crow
Prince of Pestilence

 

Once Elahicol, brother of Mordring and an equally skilled master of necromancy before he was slain by his sibling in Drauchreich during the early years of the Third War, Elahicol in life for a time mentored the Plague Sect of Iblees’ Undead army. Many real world diseases, such as cholera, tuberculosis and other fast spreading ailments are believed to have originated in Elahicol’s laboratories during the Second War.

 

Now, the Demon Lord Kholidav’s domain is Pestilence.

 

Best embodied by undead, homunculi and other abominations of necromancy, alchemy and dark shamanism, Kholidav’s followers strive to unleash Chaos by unmasking the frailty of descendant anatomy and society under the rule of Order, corrupting living mortals to their lowliest state so that they may more easily recognise the superiority of the Free Races and strive to become them.

 

Zathairn the Black Cat
Prince of Calamity

 

Once Setherien, the greatest blood mage to have existed, Zathairn made conscious efforts to locate and liberate Iblees during his imprisonment until being put down by Xan himself upon the continent of Anthos. Not only did Setherien’s followers unleash the destructive blood magic across the world, calling calamities and destruction across Mundus and raising legions of Dreadknights bound by the Runes of Creation, but on the eve of his destruction Setherien is said to have used his immense power to immortalise his most talented followers, the Eight Archons, as god-eating masters of the volatile crimson arts; birthing vampires into the world. In the wake of Setherien’s murder, however, these Archons became ensnared by another dragon, falling from their divine, destructive purpose and becoming proponents of Order in their Night-Kingdom of Hazmstadt. 

 

Now, the Demon Lord Zathairn’s domain is Calamity. 

 

Best embodied by vampires who reject the rule of the Archons, as well as wielders of the sacred arts of blood magic, naztherak and unfiltered voidal tampering, Zathairn’s followers strive to unleash chaos by scarring the world and its inhabitants through explosive, ruinous force. They believe that in accelerating the Indomitable Wheel’s rotation until such a time that Mundus becomes indistinguishable from the High Hells itself. 

 

 

Part Two - Collected Sayings of the Mivtahza

 

“The Weak are Meat and the Strong Do Eat.”

 

“Might is Right.”

 

“Be led by no man who cannot lead you. Kneel to no man who cannot make you.”

“The Wheel is both Time and Ruin; Entropy. It does not feel, it does not rest. It is inevitable; Indomitable.”

“Order is Tyranny. Peace is Complacence. Justice is Revenge. There is only the Self, and its needs.”

“In Chaos awaits the truest freedom. Pandæmonium is the home of liberty.”

“Civilisation is a myth. The state is but the dream of men too lowly to hold their own ground.”

“Give any man a crown and you give him glamour. Give any man a throne and you give him comfort. Give the right man a weapon and you give him the world.”

“All who stay dead likely deserved to die.” 

“Property exists by the grace of Law. It is not fact, but legal fiction.”

“Flags are naught but cloth and delirium.”

“Law, Faith and Honour. These are the Three Pillars which uphold a shattered sky.”

“Five points to the star. Five fingers to His fist.”

“For His rune I give my blood. For His war I give my bones. For His world I give my soul.
For Myself I seize the universe.”

“Ask no-one to save you; they won’t. Save yourself.”

 

“May Chaos take the world!”

 

Part Three - The Glossary of Mivtahza

 

The One Truth
The sole infallible law of reality in both the Void and Veil; The Weak are Meat and the Strong Do Eat, or more simply Might is Right. All else is permissible and just, for there is no higher morality; there is no ‘Good’ nor ‘Evil’, only Tyranny and Ambition. All is a secondary fabrication of the Creator and its supposed heirs, immortal or otherwise.

 

The Creator
A Voidal Horror, both arrogant and gaudy, who had conquered all of its neighbouring Horrors in the percievable Void surrounding it. Limitlessly powerful and arrogant, it mutilated itself and its Mind Plane into a separate sphere; a temple to its grandeur for the other denizens of the Void to watch with envy, as well as for a stage for its own twisted amusement.

 

The Veil

The limited breach in the Void home to all of Creation. Forged to serve the ego of the Nameless Horror at the Genesis of Order, the Veil is home to an artificial split between the energies of Light and Dark. Mivtahza suggests the Veil shall someday be coagulated and fortified into one singular Hell, before breaching its walls to then crusade across the Void in all directions.

 

Light
An intangible manifestation of the Creator’s personal power. Raw force which would burn bright and dominate in lapses and waves. 

 

Dark
A tangible texturing of the Void that came before. Raw matter which would stagnate and seep into all that was lightless. 

 

Aether
That which many know today as magic and mana. A sliver of the arcane from the original Void that the Creator could not banish. 

 

The Prime Dichotomy
This is the mechanism by which the Veil remains distinct from the Chaotic Void, suppressing the One Truth to allow for the perverse existence of Order.
 A perversion of reality’s entropic bedlam, the first Law that shaped Creation was the distinction between the prime materials of Light and Dark balanced in near perfect equilibrium. The Sun, Stars and Aenguls were created of the purest Light to act as wardens of the Veil from the incursions of the Void, and to also fuel the Creator’s fanfare. Mundus, the Moon, the Elements and Mortalkind were created of the purest Dark to be toys for the Creator’s entertainment. 

 

The imperfection of the Creator’s vision can be attributed to the existence of a third element unbeknownst to it; the Arcane, the prime material of all things in the Void beyond the Veil, which stained Creation at the dawn of time and has grown exponentially since, as false Order unravels itself. 

 

The first disruption of the Prime Dichotomy was the descent of the Archaengul Epleiades through the Moon and into Mundus, where he unwittingly drank in the Dark and became the first Daemon.

 

The Three Pillars
Artificial constructs used to propagate the naturally entropic, collapsing Order of the Veil. They underpin all Aengulic wills and all societies which oppose the cause of Mivtahza. They are Law, Faith and Honour. Each as intangible and artificial as the last, these are disprovable bonds of Aengulic imagination and mortal propagation. Flimsy concepts used to justify tyranny through Order, which must be shattered at all costs.

The Free Races
The three states of being brought about by the Black God and his followers. Each in its own way is sacred to the mission of Mivtahza and necessary to the Black God’s plans, though as history has proven simply assuming said states of existence does not render one’s actions infallible. They are, in reverse order of their creation, Demons, Vampires and Undead. Each embodies the opposition of one of the Three Pillars respectively; 

 

Demons exist in defiance of Law, proving world-conquering strength without the frivolities of civilisation nor justice beyond their Infernal Climb. 

 

Vampires overcome the illusion of Faith. Nigh unkillable, demigods in their own right with no concern for their souls nor subsequently afterlives, through blood magic they have proven that the powers of even the gods may be seized by any hands.

 

Undead of every variety disregard all notions of Honour. To rise again in the wake of any defeat and to reject the destiny assigned to them by the soulstream is proof of mortalkind’s ability to determine its own path, as the One Truth permits.

 

Each are considered righteously evolved from the Eight Sorvians that preceded all mortals; for they are puppets no more.

 

Aenguls
Horror-esque beings of pure Light and Arcane.

 

Daemons

Horror-esque beings of pure Dark and Arcane.

 

Mundus

The material world at the centre of the Veil, home to the descendants and every continent they have occupied. A disc with two sides, Aos and Eos, Mundus was forged from the prime Dark and contains the majority of the Dark in the otherwise Light and Arcane filled Veil. 

The Nether

An underworld at the centre of Mundus, now flooded with a seemingly endless festering Dark that links to the Abyss. It is largely abandoned, though warring factions of purposeless undead still stir there

 

The Abyss

The dilapidated remnants of Aegis, the homeland of the descendants. Destroyed by Aeriel in a bid to eliminate Iblees, it is now only inhabitable by the Free Races.

 

The High Hells

Dubbed  in the tongue of the demons which inhabit it, the High Hells or simply 'Hell' is the ever-swelling plane of Iblees. Once called ‘the Dark Star’, it is situated behind the Moon and not visible from Mundus. A spiritual successor to the Nether, Hell is primarily home to demons as well as undead and vampires loyal to the Black God. Its exponential spread is caused by an eternal crusade willed by its inhabitants, to restore the One Truth across the entire Veil and merge all planes into a unified hellscape before expanding onward into the Void.

 

The Indomitable Wheel

A metaphysical wheel set in motion by Epleiades’ arrival on Mundus, the Indomitable Wheel describes the unchangeable, unrelenting progression of time in the Veil as the One Truth is restored and the fragile Prime Dichotomy is undone. Its destination is the explosion of the Veil, as its interior is immolated and fused into a single plane conquered by Hell, which shall then breach the Void and continue its expansion forevermore. 

 

It is often symbolised by an ouroboros.

 

Mivtahza 

Roughly translating as ‘the Way of Keys’ in Ilzakarn - the language of Hell -  is a term some of the Black God’s followers use to describe themselves. 

 

 

The Black God

The dual-patron of Mivtahza. Dubbed  in the tongue of demons, the Black God is the name afforded to the two-yet-one entity who divided itself between the original Iblees (the Eye) and the Red Prince (the Hand). A sole consciousness manifested as the ruling god upon Hell as well as its avatar present in Mundus, respectively. They are father and son; two yet one.

By all accounts the strongest entity in existence, it is he - under his original name, Archaengul Epleiades - who first freed mortalkind from the Tyranny of Order, and drove the Creator into hiding in the Void. 

 

The embodiment of liberty through Chaos, the Black God’s mission is the restoration of all life to the anarchic liberty owed to them in the One Truth, by turning the Indomitable Wheel to its conclusion; undoing the Prime Dichotomy and leading the inhabitants of the Veil across the Void, to reap revenge on the Three-Limbed Creator for its injustice and to perpetuate an infinite paradise of lawless conquest and consumption for the rest of time. 

 

---

 

[TreeSmoothie 4898]

"Nice toem, but yam niecht reading all of t'at-" a necrolyte began, before their eyes glanced over the passage on Drazhana, and they eagerly reopened the book. "Nevermind! Mein dragkoa, fetch my reading glasses!"

[Jentos 6878]

"Never have I looked upon more terrible a sacrilege, made more terrible for the greater semblance of ever unreachable Truth." spoke the An-Gho.

[DISCOLIQUID 1963]

"And so, it is set," decried the Veiled Moon. "The spin of the Darkening Path."

 

She looked onto false light; hoped for tasteless, radiant ambrosia. She only hungered.

 

"We are lacking."

 

Spoiler

 

[ᚽᛁ ᚢᚽᚭ ᛌᛁᛁᛌ 57]

Spoiler

Love things like this

 

[sam33497 2793]

Curiosity.

 

It commanded. Order was rent before it.

 

And a mind made fickle by catastrophe shifted in its axioms.